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Sonic Warfare #3: the Wailing Souls 

“Code-named ‘Wandering Soul’ because the audio engineers spent weeks recording eerie sounds based on their exposure to local music, folklore, ghost stories.  The eerie sounds are similar to the soundeffects employed during a radio mystery play, but transposed to live theatre of Vietnam.  These sounds were intended to represent souls of the enemy dead who had failed to find the peace of a proper burial.  The wailing soul cannot be put to rest until this proper burial takes place...

 The purpose of these intrusive sounds was to enhance panic instincts and facilitate crowd dispersal and the disruption of troop strategies, village chanting, rites, routines, and celebrations.  The target audience (victims) are forced to drop everything to cover their ears.  At night the system was at its most effective as it harassed the sleeping and preyed on the sensibilities and superstitions of the target population.  It was further intended to destabilize beliefs, disorient the human targets, and enhance intra-community irritability.”

Plantenga, Radio and Aural Destabilization, 2001, page 4

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